Scavenge free electronics, food, and help the environment

Ok, so you're short on money, and you need free stuff, or maybe you just want to get some free electronics equipment and food.

So we're going to show you how to scavenge free stuff!

With a little practice, scavenging and recycling waste can become lifelong habits. It's truly amazing how much money you can save. You don't need to do everything we mention (and we've just scratched the surface of what's possible when truly desperate), but if you've been eating instant ramen for as long as you can remember and would kinda like to watch TV someplace more private than the bar down the street, this one's for you.

In fact, if you'd like to get free equipment and lower your cost of living, read on, McDuff!

• And a special thanks to my collaborators!

All who collaborated - Rishnai Skunkbait Plasmana Thermoelectric JellyWoo

Step 1: Let your fingers do the walking

Talk to your friends. Maybe someone you know has got a VCR they want to get rid of. Maybe someone just came back from vacation and will give you the casings from their disposable cameras.

I have friends who have gotten 10's of bikes from friends, accumulating 30-40 bikes, and i can borrow/get a lot of stuff from my dad's lab... - AnarchistAsian

Why bother asking strangers when the answer may be right in your Rolodex?

Comments

[930913]

I have friends who have, from dumpsters: -A longbow -Several swords and machetes -Laptop -Bikes -Tv -Longbow

[stitches22]

you kinda said longbow twice, just to point it put. btw, awesome instructable!

[Lotsa Bad Luck]

Maybe he got 2 of them. LOL

[sharlston]

ye right

[AnarchistAsian]

woah, if you cleaned it up, it'd be worth a lot....

are you sure it's 1930's though? because by that time, muskets had been obsolete for a long time...

[thepelton]

I have gotten ring binders and wastebaskets out of the dumpster near my apartment, behind an office building, but not a laptop. I would check it for viruses before using it if I did.

[ReCreate]

I have found a brand-new(2005Ish) Dell Laptop with built in wifi and a very good battery,and a bunch of other stuff too

[AnarchistAsian]

ohhhh wow... the things people throw away...

[zombiehunter96]

Ah the joys of electronics. A few years back I decided I was gonna teach mysefl a little about electronics. I decided i would start with a "camra tazer", all was going well untill I forgot to take out the AA batteries and got my thumb stuck in the "shocky area lol" and got electrocuted untill the charge ran out..... good times, good times.

[putty1cat]

Oh thank you! That gave me a good belly laugh.

[LoneWolf]

"shocky area"

Nice of you to include the Scientific term.

[AnarchistAsian]

yeah it's hard not to get shocked, unless you have gloves

[SteeleWorks]

are you sure that somebody hadn't just left their pressure washer out beside there bins

[spylock]

Where I live we have a program so that you can leave items that others may want under a poll shed at our county dump,people throw away alot of nice things.

[Chris Tucker]

My 'graphics/Photoshop' workstation here is a Macintosh G3 "Desktop". Someone replaced the 233 Mhz G3 CPU with a 500 Mhz G4 CPU. Found it in Cambridge (MA) on the curb, a few steps ahead of the trash pickup. The ViewSonic CRT was also a curbside find.


The keyboard is an Apple Extended II, purchased at a local Goodwill for one dollar. The mouse is an eBay find.

I have a USB 2.0/FireWire 400 PCI card (cheap find on eBay) in the computer.

A Wacom ArtzII pad, again from eBay is the most expensive item. US$30.00.

The Apple Color OneScanner 1200/30 was another curbside find, and the LaserWriter 4/600 PS was a gift.

So, for about US$50.00, give or take, I have a dedicated Photoshop machine.

The OS is Mac OS9. For my modest graphic editing needs, it's perfect.

[hellstudios]

hah, is that a coil from a car in that picture?

[netcandyman]

I Googled dumpster diving and here is the link that found most useful

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster_diving

Most of the topics that came up were theft and health.

Theft: Depending on the State in the U.S. or country determined whether DD was illegal.

Health: I'm not going into details but food poisoning is on top.

Safety:

Top of my list.

Do you know what's really under there?

I'd hate to end a fruitful day of treasure hunting with a visit to the hospital because I was impaled by sharp pointy things I couldn't see.

I admit that I've pulled a few things from a dumpster. The only difference is that I would never climb into one. If I can reach it safely, I'll grab it.

Shortly after pick-up day I'd use a long stick with some sort of hook on it. The one thing I try to avoid is struggling with the object. Sure, you might have struck it rich, but if you have to go through that much effort to extricate your find, it mean you rarely have a complete visual on the thing. The part you're looking for is buried under junk, or it may not even be attached to the end of the stuff you think is there.

[netcandyman]

I was running errands one day and encountered road construction. The traffic was rerouted through sides street. As I drove down one of those streets I saw a make-shift shelter of hastily assembled lumber and a large blue tarp. As I drove passed, I saw a very large sign that read, "FREE", and on either side were sitting two nearly complete PCs. The only parts that were missing were the mouse, keyboard, monitor and power cables. Obviously, a shot at more PC parts, or even better, new additions to my collection of PCs. When I got them home, I connected then, and they worked. Now I have two 800 MHZ PCs sitting under my "PC table".

It just so happens that I have an interest in astronomy, so I help UC Berkeley's SETI@Home project by sorting through millions of bits of data searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (i.e S. E. T. I.). The other one is storage.

[indivara]

Maybe you should mention the cartoon is from xkcd
snapple

[AnarchistAsian]

yeah, sure, but most people already know...

[indivara]

of course... I was just thinking of the legal implications... should have mentioned earlier - great instructable! got my 5* :-)

[AnarchistAsian]

thanks! but, the thing is... on instructables, most projects are "attribution-sharealike-noncommercial, blah blah blah... in other words... we can use any pictures, and we don't make profit, and they don't mind...

[hintss]

xkcd is CC attribution-noncommercial, so you have to acknowlege it

[Boppo3]

I'll help u with the referral but don't forget to help me with mine too!!!

[AnarchistAsian]

ok

[coleyy]

here is a tip: if you see a large capacitor it most likley still has at least a little electricity still in it, so hold a screwdriver with the plastic part in your hand and touch the leads with the metal part to discharge it so it wont shock you. make sure there are no power connected to the thing or it will recharge. there may be a spark or a tiny lightning when you do it, but that is better than being electrocuded. You should also do this to parts you are unfarmilliar with just to be safe.

[AnarchistAsian]

oh yeah i do that sometimes too

[luudvig]

Here in Norway they are called containers

[opanocat5]

 Hooray for Politically Correct! (Sarcastic) Why don't you just call them trash cans, what harm does that do?

[animalcrosser5]

That's not PC, PC Is calling it a "Cylindrical refuse receptacle."

[zuner2012]

You do realize that in other regions of the world, there are different words for different items? Geez, I mean cmon already! Why don't we call them rubbish bins?

[hintss]

because they're dumpsters

[LetsExplodeSomething]

 I've heard from friends that if u wait until best buy gets new models in you can get computers out of the dumpsters behind the place.  Anyone ever tried this?

[animalcrosser5]

I dunno. Seems unlikely that they'd do that and lose thousands of dollars. I would think they would sell them at a discount, or maybe to an overstock place.

[tubanator-2.0]

no but it might work ill try tommorow im off of school but if not at best buy try a computer only store's dumpster in my area its canton computers...also for free food i like to sign up for newsletter for places and i usally get good coupons just found one today for free doritos.

[LetsExplodeSomething]

 would love to hear how it goes

[BarginsTech]

these days major companies lock up their dumpsters at night. I worked at michaels arts and crafts and they locked them up there too! Like who is gonna want a glue stick from the trash?! My supervisor told me things like vases and home decor needs to be destroyed before putting it in the trash. There was a vase i wanted, it was hidden in the store for almost a year and since it was out of their ctatlog i couldnt have it and he smashed it. Its terribly sad businesses care that i could have gotten it for a penny instead of the $12 it wasnt worth anyway.

[animalcrosser5]

Really? That's a shame. That's really bad business practice. Why throw something away when you can sell it and make up for some of the money initially invested?

[macgyverfan]

another thing you can do is (if your over 18) use free product testing sites like product-testing.com. companies usually let you keep what you try. ;)

[fegundez1]

It isn't free if you have to buy something. These websites that say free whatever then you have to participate in our offers are a disappointment